Coffee changes lives. Today, many of us can't imagine life without it. But cafés where they put the swirl in your latte? Not always worth the effort. For those who prefer a more straightforward cup of artisanal coffee, brewed at home from beans delivered straight to your door, there’s Regular Coffee. Seriously, that’s the name of Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Rowster Coffee’s new subscription service. Regular Coffee offers a convenient way to purchase and experience your daily black magic.
How it works: Subscribe online via RegularCoffee.com. Each month a perfectly portioned 30-day supply of specialty brew for one arrives. Order as much as you want. Change up your subscription or cancel at any time. Easy.
Where it’s from: Regular Coffee is grown on small farms in Huehuetenango, Guatemala and then roasted after hours at Rowster’s micro-roaster café. Packaged in a special tube to keep it fresh, it is then shipped from Grand Rapids to your doorstep. A pretty valiant crack at farm-to-mug if you ask us.
What you pay: 20 bucks per tube.
How it tastes: According to the folks at Rowster, Regular Coffee has "a lightly-roasted yet full-bodied taste with a caramel sweetness and dried fruity aroma."
Why you’ll feel good: You’re supporting small farms and small business while enjoying a damn good cup of coffee. Special Agent Cooper would totally have this delivered to his hotel room in Twin Peaks.
Bonus: Clean, minimal packaging. Futura Bold type on a cardboard tube just feels honest, modern, and kinda Wes Anderson-ish.
When Evangelia Koutsovoulou moved from rural Greece to Milan, Italy her cooking suffered. She realized city cooks didn't have access to the same herbs founds in the mediterranean country side, so she launched a Kickstarter campaign to start distributing fresher Sage, Bay Leaves, Oregano, and Thyme.
But because she's not the biggest fan of cameras, and Kickstarter campaigns require a video element, she commissioned friends to tell the story of her two-year search for the best herbs in a simple but impressive animated short. Koutsovoulou also designed a strong branding identity for the herbs: each package is shipped in a small foldable bag with a cleanly designed name and information card affixed to the front. A tiny yellow sun at the bottom of the card contrasts the blue sans serif type, and along with the market-style bag, connotes freshness.
Pledge some money and become an official "Oregano Tester"
Put simply, the colors in Nadja Staubli photos are surprising. Whether it's an image of a Martian red sky above an indoor pool, or a three-color pastel mansion shot from the parking lot, Staubli finds colors and shapes that don't seem of this world. Instead her collections read as a kind of happily distorted vacation diary that pays more attention to unexpected patterns in swimming pools, golf courses, and highways than documenting sights and people. [Via It's Nice That]
from Community
from Urtropica
from P.U.R.P.L.E
While it might be mid-May, it still gets a little chilly in Los Angeles at night. In an effort to help those stranded without a sweater and sell a few ponchos, the L.A.-based poncho company Señor Tyrone just launched a "Poncho Express" program that promises local delivery of one of its fine, made-in-the-Andes ponchos in under an hour with only a simple tweet. To get your hands on an emergency poncho, all you have to do is send a tweet to @senortyrone bearing the hashtag #ponchoexpress with your location. Delivery is free, and the messengers accept cash and credit. And the good news for cold folks in New York is that a similar service is planned for a fall launch.
Before you get stuck poncho-less out in the cold, head to Señor Tyrone to see if you're in the delivery zone.

After the end of World War II, a number of writers and creatives left home in Europe and immigrated to the United States and Canada. One group of Latvian writers and artists, who set up new lives in Canada, launched a magazine called Jaunā Gaita, or "The New Course," to create work about their unfamiliar surroundings. While the content was notable on its own, the magazine also developed a cohesive tone with their cover art for each issue, typically featuring a bold design and rarely more than three colors. The magazine is still active in the increasingly rare print format, and although printing technology has made full color images commonplace, Jaunā Gaita often still opts for the simplicity of a two-color design.
Check out the Jaunā Gaita archives to see even more covers and features.